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Forcillo judge nixed suicide-by-cop claims: DiManno

Const. James Forcillo is charged in the shooting death of Sammy Yatim. On Wednesday, the jury began deliberating whether Forcillo was legally justified in shooting Sammy Yatim or it if was murder.
(MARTA IWANEK / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO)

At one point during closing arguments of the trial where a Toronto police officer now awaits his fate on a charge of second-degree murder, defence lawyer Peter Brauti told jurors that the prosecution had slung everything it could at the wall, hoping something would stick.

This is what Brauti sought to throw at that same wall: Suicide-by-cop.

Teenager Sammy Yatim was depressed, desperate, wanted to die and needed a police officer to do the killing for him. Const. James Forcillo, to his immense misfortune, was merely the stooge who pulled the trigger. Pulled it nine times.

Justice Ed Then wasn’t having any of it.

The theory, the expert witness, Yatim’s moody (also typically teen-drama) texts and emails — all were ruled inadmissible by Then.

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“I fought with my dad and s---, he’s kicked me out like forever. I can’t go back. Now I gotta find myself a house and all this bulls---.’’ (July 23, four days before his death.)

Yatim’s state of mind, as Then made clear in his instructions to the jury earlier this week, is immaterial and utter speculation. Forcillo’s actions — whether the shooting was justifiable or not in the circumstances — is the only matter for jurors to ponder. “You must not allow yourself to guess or make up theories that aren’t supported by the evidence.’’

That didn’t stop Brauti from sidling up to the suicide-by-cop theory in his final address, even as the colour rose in Then’s face.

“We started to try and bring forward ... evidence suggesting that on this night, for a number of reasons, Mr. Yatim was interested in a confrontation with the police,” Brauti said. “However, we did not call the evidence we wanted on that point and you should not speculate as to what the evidence might have been.”

How sly.

“Yeo, I got kicked out of my house and s---. I gotta get my stuff tomorrow.” (July 22)

A voir-dire on Dec. 7 — a trial within a trial, without the jury present — heard extensive testimony from a criminologist on the subject of “victim-precipitated homicide.” Brauti tried to get Richard Parent, for three decades an officer in Vancouver before retirement and a new career as PhD academic and researcher specializing in suicide-by-proxy, qualified as an expert witness.

Under direct questioning, Parent — who’s studied hundreds of suicide-by-cop incidents — testified that would-be suicides typically arm themselves with an inferior weapon — Yatim wielded a switchblade — and manufactured a crisis to “engage” with police. “It defies rationality. Why would you confront someone who has a pistol pointed at you? That makes up roughly 35 per cent of police shootings.”

He added that the showdown was manipulated to ensure a lethal outcome. “Instead of the Bonnie and Clyde fleeing from the police, it’s actually waiting for the police to come, looking for the police officer, finding the officer and then attacking them so that police have to use deadly force.”

But Yatim, while he brandished his knife at passengers, in fact herded them safely off the streetcar. He never attacked anybody — though Forcillo testified that Yatim had “flicked” his knife in a threatening gesture after repeatedly refusing orders to drop the weapon. The constable believed Yatim was about to come down the steps. That’s why he fired his Glock, in two volleys, striking Yatim eight times.

To support his theory, Parent pointed to Yatim’s peculiar behaviour earlier that evening — before he boarded the streetcar, before he pulled out his penis, before terrified passengers stampeded away. At the subway station, the teen had asked a TTC janitor for change, asked to use his phone and asked the man three times “in a very insistent manner’’ to call for police. Yatim was already attempting to lure cops, Parent suggested.

Bulmer accused Parent of looking at events back-to-front. “Isn’t what’s going on here that you’re starting with a conclusion and reasoning backwards to your conclusion?”

It all reeked of a calculated plan, Parent insisted.

On the streetcar, before police arrived, Yatim had also asked the driver if he could borrow a phone because he wanted to call his dad. Parent noted that, in victim-precipitated homicides, the individual often tries to reach a loved one first; “they have last words or they want to pass on something.” Or, Parent continued, “it’s an act of revenge. It’s, ‘you caused this. You are going to pay for what happens now.’ ”

Bulmer put it to the witness that Yatim was neither suicidal nor vengeful, in his expressed desire to contact his father, but instead bewildered. “He was saying, ‘I am confused about the situation. I don’t understand what’s going on around me. And the one person I can talk to is my dad.’ ”

The bus driver testified that Yatim said: “Everyone is trying to kill me, man. Even n-----s at the station trying to kill me.”

“Trust me, I wash my hands from my dad, I haven’t seen him for two months and I’m not going to try to see him LOL f--- them.” (July 18)

Parent relied on those emails and texts to craft a “psychological forensic autopsy.” From them he deduced that Yatim was being bombarded by multiple “stressors” — no job, no money, no home, no support network. Suicide ideation is what Parent read into Yatim’s communications. As well, Yatim had done a Google search on “the easiest way to kill yourself,” later accessing a blog post entitled “How to commit suicide without feeling any pain.’’

Parent acknowledged, however, that he wasn’t a psychologist. Nor had he asked for toxicology details — Yatim had taken ecstasy that evening, cocaine in the previous 24 hours and smoked marijuana before coming downtown.

The Crown reminded that a groundbreaking study identified four criteria for suicide-by-cop to be considered: A stated wish to die; asking police to kill them; evidence of written or verbal suicide left with a friend or family member; possession of a lethal weapon (or what might be mistaken for it); intentional escalation of an incident so that officers would shoot.

Yatim never told anybody that night that he wished to die, left no suicide note behind and — the Crown argued — was not the one who escalated the standoff.

It went on for hours, the voir-dire. In the end, Then cut to the chase: Yatim was the victim, Parent’s alleged insights were of no consequence and he would not be permitted to testify in front of the jury.

“WTF bro let’s chill for a bit. You know, I’m gonna move out and s--- ‘cause I’m not gonna see you n-----s after a lot.”(July 9)

Brauti attempted to get the emails and text messages entered through another witness, Martin Musters, a forensic digital expert. The judge turned thumbs-down on Musters also.

Neither the evidence from the voir-dires nor the contents of Yatim’s text messages could be reported until the jury retired to deliberate a verdict, which they did Wednesday morning.

“Bro, the thing is I got zero money right now so I can’t pick-up juice or booze or nothing but if you just reach here and we’ll chill here Nathan will get me tings but I tell you, I just wanna chill out and get f-----d.” (July 12)

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